A habit that will change your life
If you really want to change, dive in
The worst place you can be is when you don’t want to change, not because of the pain of change but because of the comfort of staying the same.
I was too in that place where I didn’t want to change because it was comfortable to stay the same, binge-watch and play video games all day and night. The lockdown period has made me that Kumbh Karan, who doesn’t love to sleep but loves to binge-watch and eat junk most of the time.
I am glad that I missed that opportunity after my 12th board.
What! what happened? You ask
I was always a child without my primary parents (father and mother) from the very beginning, but I never felt any emptiness without them, I don’t know why, it could be because of such good people around me who took care of me after them.
But when I completed my higher secondary education and passed with good marks, the money factor came in. I studied in a government school where the fees were as low as possible. But now for college admission, I have to pay a far higher price than I was paying in school, and those good people around me have stopped being good anymore because now they have to be good with money as well for me.
So, they put two options in front of me:
You’ll join the family business
OR
You’ll go to college and study further
Choose one. They said
Without thinking anything, I said, “I will go to college to study further.” But was that a wrong option for me, What if I fail to achieve something? What if they throw me out of the house if I don’t achieve something? These questions revolved around my head for a while.
And then one day, when I was scrolling Instagram, I stuck to a reel of Ankur Warikoo (anybody who doesn’t know him here, you can imitate him for a while and get to know him.) I started watching him on YouTube and Instagram, and ended up buying his book, “Do Epic Shit Done”, which changed my life.
After reading that book, I am glad that I missed the business opportunity of joining the family business. I am not saying that a family business is the worst place you can be, but for me, it was the worst place to live because I was naive in that field of business and it asks for lots of investment from the start, which I don’t have already.
Sometimes you need to be in the lowest level before you receive the lesson that life is trying to teach you.
The habit that’ll change your life
Remember, a book changed my life? READING that book changed my life. Reading is a habit that’ll change your life. When I started reading, I imagined how much knowledge I was missing out on by not reading beyond school books. Schools force you to read books that you don’t care of or don’t have any interest in.
Schools made you hate this life-changing habit. -Dan KoeThe fun side is, if I didn’t hit the lowest level, my mind would ignore those awesome ideas in the book. And the cool side is, you don’t need to hit the lowest level to have that experience.
Maybe schools made you hate reading and thus, they made you hate learning too.
You miss a lot of zest of life if you’re not learning because learning is the fundamental factor of knowledge in anything.
The problem is that many of us are still in that school ideology that we must force ourselves to read. You’re in that tragic situation that you didn’t set.
But what if I told you that there’s a way to get out:
Effective reading
Effective reading is a way of reading where you don’t force yourself to read, you just read what you want to.
Whatever the problem is, reading is the solution.
Reasons to read
Reading is how you absorb 10 years of experience in 8 hours. When you're bored, pick up a book, not your phone.
- Dan Koe
I believe you don’t need a reason to read.
Do you need a reason to improve your life and transform it?
I hope you don’t.
But in today’s world, that’s not the reality.
Let’s start with the fact that most people don’t realize what they’re missing out on. Now stick with me to understand the lessons I am giving now, which can have a profound impact on you.
You can’t cut trees with an unsharpened axe
You can’t cut trees without sharpening your axe. Similarly, you can’t deal with the problems of your life without sharpening your brain through reading. (The axe is the brain here, the trees are the problems of your life, and the things you use to sharpen the axe are the books.)
The game here is to self-educate and re-educate yourself to create new goals. Reading is the only way to self-educate yourself and deal with problems you'll face while achieving new goals.
True education is about curiosity and discovery, not memorization and conformity.
Dan Koe
The mind is a muscle
Your mind is a muscle that needs to be exercised regularly, and you do it by learning something new every day. Hence, reading plays a key role in learning. The point is that you need to train your mind for your mental health and indirectly for your physical health as well.
Your mind is a muscle that must be trained.Read more books that challenge you and open your mind to how little you know and how much you don’t know. Read books that encourage you to change without any fear and let you transform your life for your best self.
Don’t think that you need to do 4 reps of push-ups 20 times or 80 plunges at a time to build the muscle of your mind. You just need to read something every single day that benefits you and others everyday.
You need to reprogram your mind to change your life by reading and learning.
I just can’t stop using Dan’s words again and again. Here comes another one:
The mind is the operating system for reality, and most people are running on Windows 98.
Dan Koe
I think these 2 reasons are enough to let you start reading something you like to read and learn something new every day that’ll benefit you.
Now the question comes,
What can I read to make this habit a part of my life?
How can I make this habit effective?
How can I make reading enjoyable every day?
For that, you have to wait for a week,
Next week, I am going to unleash a few more things that will let you start reading right away.
Reading is the life-changing habit you have been seeking from the start.
I hope you enjoyed reading
Buy me a coffee ☕
Happy Sunday :)